


Trouble

by ProwlingThunder



Series: The Everlasting List of Shenanigans [74]
Category: Assassin's Creed
Genre: Angst, Canon History, Disability, Gen, Kadar Lives, Modern AU, Modern!Kadar, Modern!Malik
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-01
Updated: 2014-05-01
Packaged: 2018-01-21 11:13:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1548548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProwlingThunder/pseuds/ProwlingThunder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt!Fill. Modern AU.</p><p>Kadar survived the ambush. Not unscathed, but he did survive. He almost wishes he didn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Trouble

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ZpanSven](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZpanSven/gifts).



The thing is, Kadar is aware from the moment he wakes up that something is wrong. They don't have to even open their mouths, the healers, for him to be aware of it, because Malik is sitting next to him, quiet and drawn and distant, tired, still as a ghost. Malik is sitting there, and despite the knowledge that if Kadar had so little as a papercut Malik would be there, it's Malik's expression that does him in.

 

There's something wrong, and it's horrible and terrible, and it's Kadar's fault.

 

For a long while, he doesn't manage to stay awake except for brief periods of time. Malik is always there next to him when he is awake, until he isn't.

 

The intern, nurse and doctor-in-a-pinch is little Zahara, a few scant years his junior. His partner's sister. Kadar is one of the few people that she shows her face to, as she's grown older and it's risky, for a woman of her status to do so. It's a show of trust he imagines the head healer would scold her for, if the man knew of it.

 

He doesn't. Kadar accepts it for what it is, and tries to draw strength from it as she explains what's wrong, asks if he remembers the accident.

 

He does. He says he doesn't. He screwed up, and he doesn't want Zahara to know. It's selfish, but he doesn't.

 

It's not like he'll ever scale walls again. He'll never be an Assassin, not like he was meant to. He smiles, soft, gentle, and says that's okay, he never wanted it.

 

It's not easy to lie to Zahara. He forces himself to do it well, so well she believes it, but he's not sure he manages. She is Rami's sister.

 

Rami's sister, who he sees daily; who ensures he takes his drugs, who works him through physical therapy... who's seen more of him than Kadar's dared show much of anybody. He lets the carefully fostered crush of his youth wither; he wont chase a woman who would only be with him out of pity, and at this point, Kadar's sure she could give him nothing more than that. It had always been painfully obvious, anyway; she loved his brother. No help for it. And that was okay. He'd live.

 

Eventually though Rami did arrive, and stay for more than a breath to talk to him. It had been a surprise, because he'd been given charge of working the downstairs shop of the buearu slash safehouses, and as a rule of thumb only tourists and Zahara came to see him. Assassins? No.

 

She didn't stay for long. She got nervous, jittery; not that many would have seen it for that, but she'd been his partner, and Kadar knew her too well. And the opposite was true.

 

She knew. It hurt. They didn't talk about it.

 

But the visits were nice, brief, helpful. Healing. He talked a bit of them to Zahara, because Zahara was his healer and that was important to tell her, but only a little. Most of the things he and Rami spoke about were private things, fond memories or inside jokes or a bit of insite from another perspective. She bristled about her new partner, talked about their mentor-- her father, but on the field they were family in a different way, and ties of blood or legality didn't matter, the Creed did, they were all brothers and that was that. Kadar talked about the shop, news he overheard, rumors.

 

It helped.

 

Rahman came to visit at some point after that. Kadar didn't fault him for taking so long; the man was a teacher, and a good one, and busy, besides.

 

Malik didn't. Kadar was okay with that too.

 

The trouble was, Kadar didn't want to know how badly he had screwed up. Zahara had told him Malik, too, was no longer an Assassin on account of the accident, but had been promoted to Dai and become a Rafiq, leading the buearu above Kadar's own head.

 

Malik blamed him, surely, and the blame was rightfully Kadar's, and Malik refused to come to him because Kadar had stolen who his brother was right out from the man's own skin with his error.

 

That hurt. But it was true.


End file.
